How to remove Security Essentials 2010 (Uninstall instructions)

Security Essentials 2010 is a new rogue antispyware program, clone of Internet Security 2010, which is also rogue antispyware program. The rogue is installed through the use of trojans. When the trojan is started, it will download and install Security Essentials 2010 onto your computer without your permission and knowledge.

During installation, Security Essentials 2010 configures itself to run automatically when you logon into Windows. Once started, it will simulate a system scan and report a variety of infections that will not be fixed unless you first purchase the software. Of course, this is a scam, because the rogue is unable to detect or remove any infections. Important to know, all of these infections do not actually exist on your computer, so you can safely ignore the false scan results.

While Security Essentials 2010 is running, you will be shown nag screens and fake security warnings from Windows task bar. Some of the warnings:

System warning!
Continue working in unprotected mode is very dangerous.
Viruses can damage your confidential data and work on your
computer. Click here to protect your computer.

System warning!
Intercepting programs that may compromise your privacy and
harm your system have been detected on your PC.
It`s highly recommended you scan your PC right now.

Security Essentials 2010
Proactive system found several active vulnerabilities on your computer.

However, all of these warnings are fake and like false scan results should be ignored! As you can see, Security Essentials 2010 is a scam, that created with one purpose to scare your into purchasing so-called “full” version of the program. Most importantly, do not purchase it!

If you find that your computer is infected with the rogue, then be quick and take effort to remove it immediately. Follow the removal guidelines below to remove Security Essentials 2010 and any associated malware from the system for free.

Use the following instructions to remove Security Essentials 2010 (Uninstall instructions)

Step 1.

Download HijackThis from here and save it to your Desktop.
If you cannot run HijackThis, then re-download it, but before saving HijackThis.exe, rename it first to explorer.exe and click Save button to save it to desktop.

Run HijackThis. Click “Do a system scan only” button. Now select the following entries by placing a tick in the left hand check box, if present:

Double Click mbam-setup.exe to install the application. When the installation begins, keep following the prompts in order to continue with the installation process. Do not make any changes to default settings and when the program has finished installing, make sure a checkmark is placed next to Update Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, then click Finish.

If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.

Once the program has loaded you will see window similar to the one below.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Window

Select Perform Quick Scan, then click Scan, it will start scanning your computer for Security Essentials 2010 infection. This procedure can take some time, so please be patient.

When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results. You will see a list of infected items similar as shown below. Note: list of infected items may be different than what is shown in the image below.

Malwarebytes Anti-malware, list of infected items

Make sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected for start Security Essentials 2010 removal process. When disinfection is completed, a log will open in Notepad and you may be prompted to Restart.

Malwarebytes Cannot Remove This Trojan! It Makes Your Computer ADMIN Inoperable And All Systems! ONLY Way To Remove And Restore Your Computer Is To Install New System Leaving “Files Intact” Do Not Reformat! Very Important! Do Not Change File System! Re-Install As Directed. Once Installed Set Up New System Then Once In Windows On Your NEW SYSTEM Install Malwarebytes Update It Then Run A Scan And Delete All Trojans Then Restart Windows And Log Into Your Old System Then Run Malwarebytes Again!!! It Will Then Detect “Security Essentials 2010”! Select All Files And Delete! Then Reboot And SELECT Your Old System And It Be Cleaned! Your Screen Will Still Be Distorted By Security Essentials But Then Right Click On Screen And Click Properties Then Select Your Fav Screen! Then It Will Be Good As New No Files Lost!!!

I tried 2 other uninstall procedures for this pesky rogue anti-virus program and yours was the one that worked. I appreciate your user friendly instructions and will definitely remember this website if I have any further malware problems. THANKS SO MUCH!!!

Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou.
Your instructions worked seemedly perfectly. My PC is happy again and me moreso. What a nasty little intrusion that was.
The infection would not allow me to google your site or go to the download pages, it kept taking me elswhere so I had to use another PC to do all the downloading and copy the files to the infected PC. Then run them per your instructions.

Thank you for the useful information. It helped me to get rid of the Security Essentials virus. However, it’s in a new package now (November 2010) and it’s called “Security Essentials 2011”, although the executable file is still named “SE2010.exe”, so I suppose it’s the same thing. Another difference is that (in my case, anyway) it installed itself in a different location, namely C:\Documents and Settings\User (your Username here, if any)\Application Data\Security Essentials 2011\SE2010.exe. Plus it was “Hidden”.
Here is a brief description of my experience:
Before performing the uninstall instructions, I did a search on my local disks using the term “SE2010”, and the search returned two files containing “SE2010”, the first being the exe file, and the second one was called “SE2010.EXE-259AEBC.pf”, a Prefetch file type, located in C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch folder, which I deleted manually. Of course I tried deleting the exe also, but it came back with an error message saying it is being in use by another program (evidently). I also tried deleting it by using the Task Manager to stop it running before deletion, but the Task Manager was blocked by the virus and it kept popping up the false security alert instead. That is when I did a search on the internet and found this page on myantispyware.com.

Step 1: after downloading the HijackThis program from http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/ (the link provided by this page returned a “HTTP 404 Not Found”), I ran HijackThis and it gave only one result related to Security Essentials: O4 – HKCU\..\Run: [updatesst] C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Security Essentials 2011\SE2010.exe. I selected the entry and pressed the “fix checked” button. After this operation, the false security alerts (every 2 – 3 minutes or so) stopped suddenly.

Step 2: after downloading and running LSPfix, there was no “helper32.dll” in the KEEP box (only the other three entries), so I went directly to pressing the “Finish>>” button. It resulted in a summary box with all values being “zero” so my presumption was that Step 2 had no utility in my case.

Step 3: after downloading and installing Malawarebytes’ as presented (including the update), I selected “Perform Quick Scan”. The scan took 59 minutes for my computer. I checked everything and selected it, and clicked on “Remove Selected”. After the completion and the log file I was prompted to restart computer. Seconds after pressing on “Yes”, a power failure occurred, so I was left in darkness (literally) not knowing if I got rid of the virus. After restarting the computer, it was still there, alive and kicking (including the Prefetch file), so I proceeded from the beginning. This time though, after Step 1, I took the opportunity that “SE2010.exe” was not running and I deleted it manually. I restarted the computer twice, just to be sure that everything is OK, and it was. After that, I performed Steps 2 and 3 again, and the Malawarebytes’ detected two entries: a folder, this time in Program Files (C:\Program Files\Securityessentials2010), which was empty, and a Registry Key, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\SE2010. After removing them and the log file, I restarted again the computer (just in case) and everything was OK. Thanks again.

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